Should "Braveheart" Determine Capital Punishment Guidelines? Please Discuss.
All can be explained! The magnificent clusterfuck that is Iraq, the growing income gap in America, the busted New Orleans levees -- everything.
It's become quite clear to us that the people who, for the last six years, have determined policy, hold (to be kind) very lax standards.
Take Michael Ledeen, for instance. Mr. Faster Please (whose influence behind the scenes of the Bush administration is well-documented) says that the hanging of Hussein was A-OK because -- wait for it...
I agree with Rich that the Iraqis botched the execution of Saddam. It was not the American way, it was the traditional way. In the course of writing a book about Naples, I read scores of accounts of hangings, and there's a copious English-language literature on such things as well, from which it emerges that Saddam's treatment—the insults, the jibes, the jokes, all those things that offend us—have long been part of the ritual. Remember the final scene in "Braveheart"? When the torturer has the crowd laughing with him about the agonies to which Mel Gibson is about to be subjected?
We sincerely hope that Braveheart's infamous scene in which a man is tossed out a window -- simply for being a homosexual -- hasn't given Mr. Ledeen any ideas.
FROM COMMENTS:
Shorter version: Gee, the real world isn't so bad when compared to fiction. I mean, even if we do nuke Iraq, it won't be as bad as what the DeathStar did to the planet Alderan in Star Wars 1 (er, I mean 4)
It's become quite clear to us that the people who, for the last six years, have determined policy, hold (to be kind) very lax standards.
Take Michael Ledeen, for instance. Mr. Faster Please (whose influence behind the scenes of the Bush administration is well-documented) says that the hanging of Hussein was A-OK because -- wait for it...
I agree with Rich that the Iraqis botched the execution of Saddam. It was not the American way, it was the traditional way. In the course of writing a book about Naples, I read scores of accounts of hangings, and there's a copious English-language literature on such things as well, from which it emerges that Saddam's treatment—the insults, the jibes, the jokes, all those things that offend us—have long been part of the ritual. Remember the final scene in "Braveheart"? When the torturer has the crowd laughing with him about the agonies to which Mel Gibson is about to be subjected?
We sincerely hope that Braveheart's infamous scene in which a man is tossed out a window -- simply for being a homosexual -- hasn't given Mr. Ledeen any ideas.
FROM COMMENTS:
Shorter version: Gee, the real world isn't so bad when compared to fiction. I mean, even if we do nuke Iraq, it won't be as bad as what the DeathStar did to the planet Alderan in Star Wars 1 (er, I mean 4)
4 Comments:
I'M SURE THAT SADDIE'S INITIAL CONDITION OF BEING NOT WELL-HUNG LED TO HIS DESPOTISM AND EVENTUAL SORRY HANGING.
Shorter version: Gee, the real world isn't so bad when compared to fiction. I mean, even if we do nuke Iraq, it won't be as bad as what the DeathStar did to the planet Alderan in Star Wars 1 (er, I mean 4)
Has Ledeen even thought that through? (Yes, it's rhetorical.)
Does he believe that Saddam Hussein will be seen in the future as William Wallace??
I feel so much better about the invasion now.
But what if Saddam has now become at one with the force and is appearing as a ghost dispensing advice to the insurgents?
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